


Make a Deal with Me

by belncaz



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Crossroads Deals & Demons, Gen, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 00:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12097161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belncaz/pseuds/belncaz
Summary: After his mother's death, a grief-stricken Neil finds out how to summon a crossroad demon. It doesn't go quite to plan when the demon turns out to be someone like Andrew Minyard.





	Make a Deal with Me

A/N: I'm borrowing from multiple verses here - Supernatural (tv show) for the crossroad demon/summoning, and All for the Game for characters/some plot references. Hope you like it!

Make a Deal with Me

 

* * *

 

Neil could feel the dirt piling under his nails as he scratched the soil away in fierce, frenzied motions. His knees ached from some long forgotten injury or another and he could feel his stomach on the brink of rebellion as he worked to finish his task. A battered tin box – had it been meant to hold bullets or their supply of fake licenses? he couldn’t really remember – stuffed with an assortment of arcane items that he’d never have imagined possessing even a week ago was on the ground next to him.

California held more than sunshine and surfboards it seemed. It held the workshops of mystics and mediums, charm shops and palm readers, the fraudulent and the true, and even more importantly it held the liminal space between continent and sea, a spirit road that his mother had walked down only two days ago. She was still reachable. Those words had been promised across a counter so dusty and cluttered that Neil had wondered if the proprietor had somehow been left off a health inspector's checklist, but as worn, aged hands filled a bag with what Neil would need and carefully traced a pattern with the urgent insistence that Neil must not forget this part, Neil was ready to forgive a bit of debris.

Shoving the box into the shallow grave – no, not that word, it was just a hole in the ground – he covered it with the displaced earth far more gently than was needed. Neil painstakingly recreated the outline he’d been shown, his finger moving in a slow, deliberate way to ensure the design was right. When he finished, he could feel himself trembling, some combination of fear, grief, anger, desperation, and maybe, just maybe, the tiniest shred of hope.

Agitated, he stood and paced a small, tight circle, glancing down each juncture of the road in turn, breathing the salty air that whispered its way from the nearby sea. It was tinged with the sweet aroma of the yarrow planted here at the crossroad, a slight spiciness from a few crushed leaves was there too.  He didn’t see the demon appear but he felt the atmosphere tighten and a snare of energy that whipped across his skin like cold electricity. Turning abruptly, he saw a figure dressed all in black with a shock of blond hair and a bored expression on his face.

The figure approached and stopped beside the hole Neil had dug, he toed at the loosened dirt nearly absently, as if thinking. The demon certainly seemed distracted as he patted the pocket of his hoodie – should demons even need hoodies? – before he extracted a pack of cigarettes. When he looked up again, Neil was surprised by the demon’s stature – surely he himself was taller?

“What do you want with a crossroad demon?” The question was asked evenly, as if it didn’t particularly concern him.

Neil felt at something of a loss now that it was time to speak his wish. “My mother is dead.” It wasn’t a wish, but then again it was, and Neil’s demon was apparently smart enough to know it and wait Neil out.

A steady gaze met his for a moment before the demon held out the pack of cigarettes. “Want one?” He smirked and nodded toward the buried box. “Free of charge of course.”

Neil hesitated but nodded and caught the pack as it was tossed to him. He took one and started to ask for a light when the end flared to life. He nearly dropped the cigarette as the demon husked out a short, mocking chuckle as he then lit his own in the same way.

“Lighters have a way of disappearing on a person, even if you're just masquerading as a human. Hellfire is useful for all sorts of things, Nathaniel.”

Neil’s head jerked up in shock and the demon rolled his eyes as if he couldn’t believe the stupidity he had to deal with.

“Nathaniel Abram Wesninski. Quite a mouthful honestly, don’t blame you for shortening it.” He took a long drag of his cigarette and exhaled it in a breath that couldn’t be called anything other than indulgent. “The name on that fake license is no more yours than this body is mine. Doesn’t matter what the shell calls itself, the soul will answer in ten years when summoned if a deal is struck.” He pointed his cigarette at Neil as if in emphasis.

“So your mother is dead. Did you kill her? Need a clean getaway?” He asked as if he were disappointed it would be something so exceedingly routine.

Neil shook his head in denial of both of those questions and the demon nodded. “Want her back, then?” Curious now, as if trying to imagine such a thing.

Neil tried to form the words, he really did. He wanted to ask for Mary to be returned to him. He wanted his mother back, but he didn’t want the life they’d had. He was tired, bitterly tired in a way that only years of laser-like focus on survival could foster. Neil didn’t want to continue to live a life parsed by the hours, he wanted…more.

The pause seemed to stretch endlessly. Neil was nearly paralyzed with his guilt. The demon smiled, it wasn’t kind.

“Ah. How interesting. Don’t bother lying to me, Neil. This is your soul we’re talking about, you’ll need to ask for what you really want, not what you think you should say. I can promise you I’m not going to judge you, that’s easily above my paygrade.”

Neil couldn’t respond, he stared helplessly at the red glow of his cigarette and watched the wisps of smoke float through the air. He hadn’t taken a drag but it had stayed burning as if freshly lit, perhaps this too was a benefit of Hellfire.

“What is your name?” Neil blurted it out before he could stop himself.

The demon tilted his head to the side and his lips curled up in a brief caricature of a smile. “Do you need one? Call me Andrew then.”

Neil nodded, feeling inexplicably steadier having something to call the creature. Andrew just watched him, his eyes seemed to stare through Neil and it was both eerie and reassuring – Andrew didn't care what he'd done, he was unafraid of whatever darkness Neil might possess and uninterested in whatever moral conflict he was grappling with. His relaxed posture indicated he'd heard nearly everything; he wouldn't be thrown by what Neil truly wanted.

"I want...I want a future, I want my mother and I to have a real future together here on earth."

Andrew scoffed at him – his irritation plain. "A real future? For someone who couldn’t even put together his true name and likeness in a summoning box? Do you even know what you’d do with a future? Besides, you'd only get ten years anyway. Try again."

There was something in Neil's eyes then, an awful resignation that showed he knew what he really wanted to ask for. Andrew waited for this to be interesting.

“I want my father and his people destroyed.”

Andrew nodded and blew out a perfect smoke ring that separated slowly and neatly into a series of smaller circles. “Do you? Are you sure?”

Neil felt a combination of confusion and anger, he hadn’t expected to be interrogated by whatever appeared from his ritual. “What do you mean?”

A bored sigh preceded Andrew’s, “Humans, always so limited.” He flicked off a little of the ash that had gathered on his cigarette. “Your life isn’t even precisely yours to bargain with, is it, Neil? And it’s not exactly your father that holds the thread, though he would dearly love to be the one that cuts it.”

 Andrew smiled then, too cheerfully to be real.  “You’re not thrown by only having ten years out of a deal because it’s more than you expected to have anyway. For shame, Neil, surely that’s cheating.” He tapped two fingers against his temple before continuing. “Still, killing your father and his people doesn’t kill the people your father belongs to, now does it? I can’t have you crying foul at me when the Moriyamas come after you.”

Neil could have been knocked over with a feather he was so astonished by what Andrew was saying. “The Moryiamas? How do you know…? Why would you mention them?’

“Oh Neil. You didn’t think your father – admittedly talented as he is with a blade – was the brains of the operation, did you? No, that’s too easy. He’s on a leash of his own, and the Moriyamas hold it. So try your request again, maybe third time’s a charm.” The humor in Andrew’s voice was real now, as if he couldn’t contain his amusement at Neil’s naiveté.

Neil was momentarily slack jawed before he took a short inhale of his cigarette, absently noting it hadn’t burned past the initial flare yet, a magical power indeed. “Why do you care if my bargain is flawed? It doesn’t hurt you, does it?”

A smirk flashed quickly across Andrew’s face before he blanked it. “Let’s just say I believe in holding up my end of a deal and I strive for a high level of customer satisfaction. Everyone approves until their time is up anyway. It’d be a real shame for you to ruin my record.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, Neil desperately trying to figure out how to get around Andrew’s surprising pickiness, and Andrew content to carry on with his mischief.

Finally, Andrew, as if inspired by some impulse even he couldn’t name, offered something else. “Tell you what, I’ll give you some time to think it over. We’ll meet again, Neil Josten.  But to keep me on retainer and ensure you don’t get stuck with a far less scrupulous being, I’ll need something from you.”

Neil stared at him. “What would you take?” He couldn’t imagine what beyond his soul a demon would be interested in.

Andrew didn’t hesitate. “A memory, give me a memory. When you leave here you won’t remember me, but you’ll keep thinking about what you truly want and a time will come when our paths will cross again and you’ll ask me for something. We’ll make our bargain then.”

Neil paused, trying to analyze any pitfalls in what Andrew had sketched out. Finally, he nodded and Andrew smiled, slow and pleased as if he’d won something far greater than a memory.

“Now Neil, in the interest of full disclosure, did the person who told you how to summon me tell you how these deals are sealed?” Suddenly he was closer to Neil, not quite touching him but definitely close enough that Neil felt his skin tingle in response.

“A kiss.” He muttered it and looked slightly uncomfortable. The old medium had told him, stern and uncompromising, that it wasn’t negotiable – it was the slip into temptation and the binding of a soul, something intimate but damning all the same.

Andrew’s laugh was nearly metallic even as he nodded. “A kiss,” he agreed, “but it’s got to be willing. So since you’re still unsure, we’ll settle for an agreement between men, yes?” Andrew held out his hand with an unholy light glinting in his eyes.

Neil extended his own hand to grasp Andrew’s and when he did he felt like he’d had the wind knocked out of him. He could feel something, he assumed Andrew, riffling through his brain and scouring his memories before picking one. Neil groaned in surprised agony, he hadn’t expected this and he honestly didn’t know how he was still standing.

Once Andrew let go of his hand, the pain stopped and Neil gasped a breath in desperate relief.

Andrew wasn’t smiling now; he was staring at Neil with something like bemusement. “The fact you’re still alive when you’re this trusting is proof enough that God must look after fools. A bit of advice, Neil, if you’d like to make it to our next meeting. When someone you’ve summoned with a preternatural ritual asks you to trust them, don’t.”

Neil had dropped his cigarette when he felt Andrew in his mind and he stared at it still glowing on the ground in confusion. “Why…why do you care?”

Andrew shrugged. “I don’t. But having staked a claim on that soul of yours, it would be a disappointment to have it snatched away just because you’re too stupid to live.”

Neil bent and retrieved the cigarette, taking a strange comfort in its glow. “What memory did you take?”

“You won’t remember it anyway so there’s no point in telling you.” Andrew pursed his lips. “I’ll say this though, you’re a mess in there,” he pointed to Neil’s head as if in clarification.

“I’m fine.” It was automatic, a response Neil had a nearly pathological reliance on.

Andrew shrugged, it was all the same to him. “We’ll meet again, Neil. You should get out of California though. You’ve stayed too long already.”

Nodding, Neil started to thank Andrew but couldn’t form the words. Andrew raised a mocking eyebrow, “Going to thank me for placing dibbs on your soul were you? Will you be so polite when the Hellhounds come to drag you down to Hell as well? Perhaps you will, you are indeed one messed up child.  I look forward to seeing what you come up with; try not to disappoint me, will you?” With that, Andrew vanished, leaving Neil with a cigarette in his hand that finally extinguished itself.

He stared at the spot Andrew had been standing but he couldn’t remember why he was there anymore. Neil was accustomed to being in strange places, but a deserted crossroad late at night struck even him as odd. He shook his head, trying to clear what felt like a slight fogginess. All that was really clear was that he needed to leave, he didn’t know quite where yet, but he had to go.

Although Neil couldn’t see it, Andrew was still watching him. A stranger appeared next to him, keeping silent until Neil finally turned and walked down the road.

“Well, Andrew?”

Andrew shrugged and a bit of unnatural cheer filled his voice. “He didn’t ask for clarification. I don’t have to tell everything I know.”

A deep, tired sigh issued forth from a taller man with tattoos decorating his arms. “He thinks you’re a crossroad demon. What are you going to do about that?”

“I didn’t lie, I just asked him what he wanted with one. Not my fault he’s gone and made assumptions, is it? He’s not that wrong anyway. A fallen angel is as good as a demon in some circles and I happened to have been summoned at a crossroad. Not my job to spell everything out. Especially to someone that doesn’t even know he’s not human – it wouldn’t make a difference to him yet.”

“Andrew.” It was a warning and a plea all at once.

“Tsk, tsk.  Such little faith, Coach. I’m hurt. Don’t worry, he won’t remember this and he’ll be ours soon enough. You can tell him all about his special heritage then and help train him up into a good little soldier. We’ll come for him next year and make him a different offer. He doesn’t know what he wants yet anyway. Pathetic.”

David Wymack, who functioned somewhere between Andrew’s boss and parole officer here on earth, and considered himself massively under-compensated for the trouble he put up with because of it, grimaced.

“What memory did you take from him, by the way?” It had been a curious move, not one Wymack had seen Andrew do before.

Andrew waved his hand dismissively. “He won’t miss it, his mother had already suppressed it, this was just insurance so that he won’t remember he’s not human until we’re ready to deal with the fallout. Neil doesn’t need to remember he failed the audition at Evermore, he couldn’t have passed as hurt as he was. But it will definitely be a problem for us if he sees Kevin next year and remembers what was coming his way if his mother hadn’t fled with him when she had the chance.”

Wymack grunted his understanding. “And that business about having dibbs on his soul?”

A short, fierce smile this time. “Oh, but Coach, that part is true enough. He’s mine, even if the hell he’s getting dragged to isn’t quite what he imagines.” Andrew tapped his temple again. “I didn’t poke through all his secrets; I knew which one I needed to erase thanks to Kevin’s memories. But he’ll give them to me in his own time. And what makes up a soul more than that? He should be amusing, for a while at least.”

Although he didn’t necessarily agree with Andrew’s actions that night, Wymack understood them. Andrew was on a crusade of his own design and the path he’d mapped out had taken a strange turn to find a young man too raw from grief to question why he just happened to stumble across someone who could tell him how to summon a demon, but not quite specify he’d be summoning Andrew instead. Andrew’s cousin Nicky was gifted with shape-shifting and hadn’t minded indulging Andrew’s whim, although he’d protested the haggard appearance Andrew had wanted him to assume.

Andrew stared down the road Neil had taken, a small half smile in place. “Good luck to you, Neil Josten. You’re going to need it.”

Wymack looked at him before training his gaze in the same direction. “We all are, I think.”

“Oh Coach, didn’t I mention? You have the happy job of getting Kevin to agree to having Neil join the team. Congratulations. Can’t be me, he wouldn’t believe it. So figure out a way to make someone who hasn’t had any training in around a decade look like a promising recruit to our ever-so-exacting star, hmm?”

“Damn it, Andrew! Why couldn’t you just fix this when you were in his head?”

“Now Coach, you know my magic doesn’t work that way. Rules are rules and all that, I have to have permission.” A sly smirk took shape. “Besides, you and Kevin are always hounding me that I should enjoy our work more. I’m having fun, aren’t you?” With that and a dark chuckle that didn’t sound the least angelic, Andrew waved goodbye to Wymack and disappeared with a flicker of light.

Wymack pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed harshly, even though he wasn’t truly angry with Andrew. He cared about all of his exiles too much for that, each of them talented representatives of their kind, but carrying damage and trauma that left them misfits and outcasts in their homelands. Glancing back at the road Neil had taken, all he could think was that maybe, even if it was the slimmest of chances, Neil would be the one to finally get through to Andrew. Staring thoughtfully, he finally smiled a little before he paraphrased Andrew’s wish, “Good luck, Neil Josten. You’re definitely going to need it.”

 


End file.
